Hailulu takes on ACC in High Court

NATIONAL Housing Enterprise (NHE) CEO Vincent Hailulu starts his legal battle against the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in the High Court today.

The ACC arrested him late last year over alleged irregularities committed at the parastatal.Hailulu is suing the ACC, its director, Paulus Noa, the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) and the presiding Magistrate of the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court for unlawful arrest.Hailulu is to make his next appearance in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court later this month on eight corruption charges.In his filing notice, Hailulu charges that his arrest on November 27 last year was unlawful, that the allegations made against him by the ACC do not amount to ‘corrupt practices’ and that his arrest was prompted by ulterior motives to try and get a group of workers controversially retrenched from the company reinstated ‘unlawfully’.According to Hailulu’s legal representative, Sisa Namandje, the ACC was supposed to wait for a decision by the Prosecutor General’s office on whether they had sufficient grounds to arrest him, instead of taking an autonomous decision in this regard.Hailulu was arrested on several charges of allegedly enriching himself and others with NHE resources, paying for personal expenses with the company credit card, and appointing and promoting staff members without following procedures.Hailulu wants the High Court to review and set aside both the ACC’s year-long investigation into his affairs in 2007 and his November arrest, and to declare invalid the criminal proceedings instituted against him. Hailulu argues that his arrest was just the latest in a long series of events orchestrated by the NUNW and a group of retrenched workers.Hailulu lists a number of steps this group took to fight their retrenchment – including statements made in the media, labour law proceedings, and disputes in the name of the union – to argue that the group, as well as the union, had their knives out for him.He says the ACC’s involvement in the case was simply to ‘create grounds for my arrest, followed by my anticipated suspension as CEO of the NHE, followed by the anticipated reinstatement of the employees by a new chief executive officer sympathetic to their cause’.He charges that the ACC was in violation of the ACC Act in arresting him.He says in his affidavit that he mentioned to the ACC officer who arrested him, ‘to approach these accusations with extreme caution as they are depicting a witch-hunt, a hidden agenda and personal vendetta against me, probably as intended punishment for having retrenched some former employees’.’I point out that the list of charges presented to me included what would on the face thereof appear to be vexatious and frivolous charges, relating to, in one instance, an expense of N$225 at Pick & Pay, and on another occasion, a purchase of N$727 at Total Sports,’ Hailulu’s affidavit reads.Regarding the N$225 Pick & Pay purchase, Hailulu alleges that the ACC flew in a forensic expert to analyse his laptop computer for verification thereof.’I find it simply astonishing that the ACC could go to all the above lengths and expenses investigating a charge of misuse of N$225 company funds.’

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